Anorexia Treatment

If you feel plagued by a fear of being fat no matter what you weigh, and you starve yourself in search of your ideal body weight, you are likely to have an illness called Anorexia. If this sounds like you, you may have had significant weight loss and now weigh below average for your height, body type, age, and level of activity. Unfortunately, Anorexia is a serious and life threatening illness. It leads to many serious physical and emotional problems and has one of the highest death rates of any mental health disorder. The likelihood of death for un-recovered Anorexics is alarmingly high: 5-20 percent. The longer you have the disease, the higher your chance of death becomes. Immediate and intensive treatment is vital to your chances of recovery, and it is available.

You might still be questioning whether or not you have Anorexia. Many sufferers share common symptoms. A main symptom is an extremely high interest in dieting (calories, fat grams) and/or exercise, and even food in general.

Ask yourself: do you refuse to eat particular foods or even whole categories of food, for example, no carbohydrates or no animal protein? Are you determined to lose weight and control your food?

While you may pour over recipes, and may even enjoy cooking for others, mealtimes or situations involving food may be so uncomfortable for you that you find reasons to avoid them. When you are with others, perhaps you find yourself moving food around the plate to give the appearance of dining and eating foods in a particular order.

You may also be almost obsessed with exercising and “burning off” the calories despite the weather or even when you are tired, ill, injured. In later stages of the illness you may be too exhausted and depleted even to push exercise.

Most of all, you may have a deep and painful experience of feeling never quite good (or thin) enough.

The “disconnect” between your perceptions of yourself and how others see you may lead you to feel misunderstood, uninterested in activities, and increasingly alone and unable to connect with family and friends. The truth is: Anorexia is self-starvation. In your body’s attempt to survive, it will progressively shut down critical systems as it attempts to conserve energy and survive on an inadequate amount of nourishment.

As your illness progresses, you may start to experience weakness, fainting and fatigue. You hair and skin may become very dry and you may experience hair loss. You may also develop a downy layer of fine hair over your face and body since your body doesn’t have the energy to keep itself warm with a reduced metabolism. If you are a woman, your menstrual period often ceases.

Your heart rate may slow drastically and your blood pressure may decline as your heart muscle weakens due to the lack of protein and other vital nutrients it needs. As such your risk of heart failure rises. While starving your body, it leaches Calcium from your bones to divert it for more urgent needs; this leaves your bones depleted, weak, dry and brittle resulting in osteoporosis even at a young age.

Your muscles may weaken and atrophy due to lack of protein and other nutrients. Likewise all your major internal organs (such as heart, lungs, gastrointestinal tract) are muscle gradually waste away, putting them at risk for failure. In addition, severe dehydration from malnutrition can cause your kidneys to fail.

This is neither a good way to live, nor a good way to die. We don’t want you to suffer any longer. You don’t have to be alone. We understand and we are here to help you discover a better way to live. Give us a call 866.922.1350.